2020-10-29: Encountering Paine

• Log: Encountering Paine
• Cast: Yuna, Tidus, Lulu, Rikku, Paine
• Where: The Calm Lands
• Date: November 14, 2020
• Summary: Paine meets Yuna and Lulu by chance, then decides to secretly help them out by subduing a Highly Suspicious Rogue Sneaking Around Their Perimeter. Tidus leaps in to rescue Rikku. And when the dust clears... Paine accepts Yuna's offer to become her last Guardian.

---

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
<SoundTracker> Calm Lands - FFX - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM8dF44PCXM

Since her ordeals in Bevelle, Yuna seems to be... embodying the land she inhabits, more than before. The fayth attune her to their elements but this is something different, something else; is she becoming Spira, is it becoming her? They are closer than before. Perhaps she takes solace in its neutrality. The trees, the ponds, the crystals of Macalania have not excommunicated her; she took in some of their serenity, absorbed some of their beauty, and made it her own.

Now she's in the Calm Lands and with every step on her journey she is more tranquil and content than the one before. This place suits her; its sunny cheerfulness has drawn something out of her, even as it enters her skin, pours down from above, while long soft grasses brush her from below.

Also, there's the matter of the chocobos...

Kimahri loves his ward too dearly to protest but Wakka rolled his eyes into the back of his head until they were nothing but whites, then dragged him and Auron off to hunt something for dinner. None of them begrudge Yuna this pleasure, though; any brotherly disdain for GIRLS and CHOCOBOS was a much more merry disguise for 'Yuna is running out of chances to coo over chocobos so let's make sure she has an excuse to stay as long as she wants.'

She kneels among them, her skirts spread out widely around her, its floral pattern utterly at home among the plains. She's a pretty thoroughly domesticated plant, Yuna of Besaid, nurtured and trimmed almost from birth -- at least, from her father's death -- to grow just so. But right now she looks more like a wildflower. She has bloomed in adversity. She is tougher than before.

She is trying to feed three chocobos at once -- oop, there's a fourth -- and will run out of greens VERY quickly at this rate.

"No!" she giggles. "No, you have to share..."

She runs her hand underneath the chin of one, just at the corner of the beak, and those who love her know that it's exactly the same gesture that she often welcomes a freshly born Valefor back into the world. Unconsciously used, surely. Just a part of her, now.

"Lulu," she implores, looking over at her nearest Guardian and dearest companion with doe-eyed ecstasy, "Aren't they wonderful?"

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    *WARK!*
    
    "So what d'you say?" a man on the other side of the Calm Lands says, holding out the reins to a chocobo to Tidus. "After you helped me out with catching those chocobos, the least I could do is teach you how to raise one!"
    
    This was not at all what Tidus had intended on after catching a wild chocobo on the other side of the Calm Lands. Wakka had dragged Kimahri and Auron off to hunt down dinner, and Yuna's having such a lovely time cooing over more wild chocobos with Lulu, so Tidus had decided to let her have some fun and take this guy back to the chocobo trainer on the western end of the Calm Lands.
    
    And that was supposed to be that, except now he's getting an offer to *train* it for the purpose of racing. He looks thoughtfully at the big yellow bird, bobbing up and down with seemingly not a care.
    
    "They *are* pretty fun to ride," he admits. "And it'd sure make getting back and forth across the Calm Lands easier... I can't believe people actually hoof it on foot."
    
    "'Hoof it'?" the chocobo trainer, who has never seen a hooved animal in his life, asks.
    
    "Uh, never mind," Tidus says quickly. "So what do I do?"
    
    ONE MINUTE LATER:
    
    "LEFT! LEFT! YOUR OTHER LEFT! GRAB THAT BALLOON--ARGH!! STUPID BIRDS!!!"

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Lulu sees it, in Yuna. Perhaps more than most she feels the world around her, too, for all that she insulates herself from it in demeanor and attire. But Lulu does not carry it with her in the same way. She sees something new in Yuna, as she is attuned to her as to any element.

...It does suit better, to see Yuna like this. Lulu lets certain others of her thoughts drift far, far away.

Not all her worries, naturally. She is still here to Guard Yuna. But she is here making more memory, too.

Lulu stands at the moment, not far from the chocobos or Yuna. She replies with smething that almost becomes a smile, looking back at un and seeing the simple joy of her moment.

She recognizes the gesture.

"...They are," she allows herself to agree, reaching out and gently running a hand along a wing-feather, as carefully as anything. "Though I think at this rate you'll run out of greens sooner rather than later..." She teases a little. But only a little.

Somehow, despite her gloomy looks, Lulu isn't out of place here in this idyllic space.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
While Yuna perhaps might be the embodiment of the calm lands... Rikku at least seems to contrast it heavily. Earlier she assisted with catching the Chocobos. An effort which was ironically made more difficult by the presence of an Al Bhed Hover joyriding across the Calm Lands.
 
"GO TIDUS GO!" Rikku has 'borrowed' Tidus' megaphone. She's using it right now to cheer him on, hopping up and down on her heels, and pumping her fist in the air. As a result? She's exceptionally loud. The acoustics of the Calm Lands probably means that those rolling plains and hills are echoing for some distance. "BEAT THOSE CHOCO-GOERS!"
 
If one is going to ask if she's punning a blitzball team purely to try and motivate Tidus. The answer is yes.
 
"YOU CHOCOBOS THOUGHT YOU WERE PRETTY HOT STUFF - THAT NO JOCKEY COULD TAME YOU! BUT THEN TIDUS ARRIVED!"
 
Only pausing for a moment, as if to adjust to the turn of events of him missing the balloon.
 
"AND HE'S NUMBER ONE! NOT TWO! NOT THREE! NOT FOUR! NOT SOME AVERAGE BUFFOON! NOW HE'S GONNA TURN IT AROUND AND GET THAT BALLOON-!"
 
Pause, a wince. Rikku keeps up her shouting.
 
"SO CLOSE! O-ONLY A MATTER OF TIME TRUE BELIEVERS - HE'S WEARING THEM DOWN!"
 

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    While Tidus wouldn't ever want Yuna to be without protection, he'd also prefer not to have to be alone--so when Rikku decided to come with him to take the chocobo back, he was pretty grateful for that. Lulu's there with Yuna, and she's tougher than most--besides which, Tidus doubts Wakka and the others will get *too* far away from Yuna for their hunting, especially with everything being the way it is right now. So he can race--and get cheered on--without worrying.
    
    Which is good because THESE BIRDS (not the chocobos, the other birds) ARE JERKS
    
    That first race ends... well, poorly. But after all that cheering that Rikku did, over his megaphone, so loud that Yuna could probably hear it all the way on the other side of the Calm Lands? "Gimme another go! I'll get it this time!" Tidus declares, pumping a fist. "Nobody starts out an ace their first time! It's all about practice, practice, practice!" He flashes Rikku a grin and a thumb's up. "We'll be riding across the Calm Lands in style in no time!"
    
    ONE MINUTE LATER:
    
    "STUPID BIRDS!!!!!"

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

"At your back," calls a more distant voice. It is quiet for how far it carries; it is pitched to warn without startling. Her intonation is as flat as an iron scraper, but husky as the honeycomb it harvests. The grasses whisper around the sound, but pause with its speaker as she halts at the edge of the small clearing. Palms displayed, with a leather waterskin pinched in one, she permits herself to be examined for a moment.

Perhaps there are no two people on Spira more prepared to see such red eyes in such a pale face as Yuna and Lulu, but seldom on a stranger. And this woman defines the word; it is difficult to name where she might belong to, in her studded black leather and threadbare travel cloak. Certainly the faded red bandana covering her forehead certifies submission to the sun, rather than allegiance to a particular group. Yet is it not little of note, that she should be little of note? The tribe of those with no tribe may be the fastest-growing of all in these times.

She wears a sword at her hip, and a rucksack on her shoulder with a thin rectangular rod sticking from it, wrapped in bandage-like cloth. A breeze-shaped white pompadour overflows her bandana (and, very nearly, her eye), but the flanks and side of her head are shaved militant-close. Barbed eyebrows and serrated lips beg a glance but repel a stare.

Lifting her booted feet through the last of the tall grass, the stranger lets her limp waterskin down at her side. As she approaches the pond, she looks first to the chocobo to see if they will startle at her. Then, seeing that Yuna's aura (or at least her food) keeps them in place, she glances sidelong at Lulu, intending a nod. She does give that nod in the end, too, but first her irises flicker in a small double-take, upon noticing how closely Lulu's match her own. All the while the chocobo are monching, making Lulu's prediction begin to come true

"It's just as well," the stranger says. "You won't do them any favor if you end up teaching them to trust people."

She halts next to Lulu but before approaching Yuna, and lifts her waterskin to the dark-robed woman, making eye contact again in a silent request for permission. If she recognizes who Yuna is, she's uncommonly good at hiding it.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
Rikku wasn't keeping track of the score, but she has eyes. So she can see Tidus did pretty poorly. Once it's done and he's dismounted him, she's patting him on the shoulder. "Hey good work! I mean the Chocobo is wild after all. I could really see you breaking them in the further you went!"
 
She offers all kinds of encouragement as he does so.
 
"Yep! You've got it! Should have known a Blitz Ace wouldn't give up so easily."
 
Rikku flashes him a thumbs up in turn.
 
"Yunie is gonna love it! Taking the next leg of the pilgrimage on Chocobo back-" Beat, "I have total faith in you!"
 
-=-=-
 
Whether it's the wild Chocobo or Tidus himself - Rikku feels her faith being sorely tested in short order. And yet all the same she remains an endless font of positivity on the changes of his inevitable victory.
 
Besides after everything in Bevelle, watching Tidus try to break a Chocobo for the purpose of making their journey easier? Well... it feels like a vacation after Bevelle.
 
"HEY, HEY, 'BO - I'M SPREADING THE WORD - T - I - D - U - S! HE'S GONNA CONQUER YOU! YOU MIGHT AS WELL GIVE UP NOW - AS I SPREAD THE WORD - T -"
 
Rikku squints suddenly, as a shape passes through the rays of the sunlight.
 
"- IDUS WATCH OUT FOR THAT BIRD!"
 
And as if on cue, a low flying gull suddenly swoops RIGHT DOWN INTO HIS PATH!
 
"Oh I can't watch-!" Rikku winces and looks away. But that motion causes her to see a tall and dark stranger approaching Lulu and Yuna. Rikku suddenly sports a puzzled look, as she kneels down and shields her eyes. Suddenly MUCH less concerned about Tidus' fate. He's a sports ace, he'll be finnnneee. Plus they have all kinds of potions and white magic. "Hmmm."
 
The way the figure carries themselves is interesting. Though she can't make out too many of their features from afar. And while she can't get a good look at the object sticking out of their pack from this distance, it does put her a bit on guard just from the possibilities.
 
The young Al Bhed Guardian mumbles to herself, "Why. Hello. Who do we have here?"
 

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

No more secrets darken Yuna's shadow; that, perhaps, is the last and most important source of her newfound comfort in her own skin. Lulu sees that in her, too. The ease of the child she grew up alongside, the girl who loved everyone too much and herself too little, who could never even imagine committing the sin of falsehood.

She beams guilelessly at Lulu as the chocobo the Guardian has chosen to touch leans into her hand.

But she isn't a child anymore, and when a stranger approaches, even a stranger kind enough to startle... her smile fades the smallest bit.

Not completely. Yevon, try as they might, could not break her of her simple, profound love for Spira and its people. She does not shrink into herself. She does not pale with fear nor darken with suspicion.

Yuna gazes back at Paine with earnest friendliness, a baseline pleasantness that does not hide a healthy, mature, caution. Next to Lulu, she is not so little a girl at all, not anymore. They are two women. Yuna a young woman perhaps but old, too, old in other ways... ways that matter.

Even before Bevelle, she had a certain gravitas, especially in public.

"Good day," she says sweetly, green and blue eyes widening curiously at the first person she's ever seen who looks so much like Lulu. It turns her softspoken greeting into a question, if only a rhetorical one.

The chocobos filch the last treat from her hands, and leave only a green smear on her palm.

It's very green indeed, set against something very red. A brand. Paine gets a glimpse before she folds it onto the other one, in her lap; the Yevonite rune for HERETIC. The brand is still cruelly fresh -- and, in fact, often bandaged... there they are, little strips of cloth in a carefully folded pile next to her skirt. She was just giving the wound some air.

That, and maybe she didn't want her dressings to smell like chocobo.

"I taught them nothing," she disagrees, in the least disagreeable way possible. So much gentleness in such a small voice. "They know their own hearts. And their hearts are very big..."

This is, if nothing else, LITERALLY true. Absent bribery the chocobos begin to rise and leave, and for a moment the whole world is bright yellow feathers. They don't go far; just to the other side of the pond, where they might drink deeply.

"There is water enough for everyone, I think," she adds, nodding at Paine's waterskin.

Looking over at Lulu -- looking BETWEEN them -- her unspoken question lingers. Maybe it's directed at them both.

Remembering advice she recently received, she does not allow propriety to prevent her from voicing it:

"I am Yuna, from the island of Besaid, and this is Dame Lulu. Might I ask... who you are?"

Well. Belize didn't say she had to ABANDON propriety when asking important questions. Yuna is Yuna, and she introduces them properly. Without any assumption that the stranger would know who they are. It might not even have occurred to her.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Guileless as ever, without the secrets that had so burdened her. Lulu does see it. Just as she sees that Yuna is not a child at all, now. Lulu has her own age, but she has seen it change in Yuna.

'At your back.' Lulu looks over immediately. Indeed she doesn't startle from it, but examines the the stranger as invited. She notes the palms, first, consults her mystical senses to ensure no magic is about to be in use. But once she gets through the very basic matters of hecking for danger, she prmits hrslf to notice hr red eyes.

Lulu doesn't double-take. Instead, she watches Paine for a few extra moments, tilting her head slightly in scrutiny. She nods back, after a moment.

It is unusual. Very, very unusual. But Lulu's discipline requires that her curiousity sit back for the moment. Paine seeks permission...

Lulu nods after Yuna does. She notices the way the chocobos go, and perhaps that's best. She does not comment on the matters of the chocobos and what they've learned or haven't learned. Instead...

She glances back to Yuna again, and her unspoken answer might be good enough, but it is not alone. "I'm curious about that myself," the taciturn Guardian comments to the other red-eyed woman. She certainly is a stranger, of course, but...

Well. What Lulu doesn't do is move, or look away from the stranger now that she's seen her. There is little to read in her expression; her features are neutral, save for obvious scrutiny. Lulu is a little intense even in neutrality, and in this case she's actually wondering a bit.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

The stranger had looked for permission from Lulu first; these were two books with covers that begged to be judged, in terms of who would be the sticking point. Yuna grants that permission to Lulu, who passes it on. Thus authorized, the white-haired woman squats next to the pond, some yards from Yuna. She sinks further than most women would, as she has more leg than most women have. Placing her waterskin beneath the pond, she strangles bubbles from it gently. As the leather is coaxed to inhale underwater, her red eyes wander to what Yuna's hands are doing. Her breath catches audibly.

Yuna speaks then, something longer than 'good day,' and no brand is needed now to recognize her. Who has not heard that sweet voice taking its time to work through a thought, over the Spheres? There's no need to confirm by looking up to those multicolored irises, but she does anyway, as bubbles wobble to the top of the pond and pop.

"Your heart must be large as well, then," she observes, not kindly, to so-recently branded woman. "...Paine," she decides, an odd note of appraisal in her voice. "Paine, of Bevelle," she says again in a more encompassing tone for Lulu's sake, the way one might loop back around to toast someone they missed the first time. Her eyes wander back down to the bubbles.

"I saw you at Mi'ihen. I wasn't there," she hastens to disavow membership in that gravely dwindled roster of heroes. "But from a distance." The last few bubbles run between her fingers, and Paine looks to Yuna, her face a canvas, taut yet blank.

"I saw you."

Pulling the waterskin from the pond and letting it drizzle, Paine stands and begins to screw its cap. "You'll be looking to hide, then," she addresses Lulu, whom she now knows to be a Guardian. "Don't worry. I've learned to be incurious."

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Perhaps Yuna was polite for more than one reason. By hastening to lay the (admittedly rarely needed) card of her identity upon the table up-front from the start, she has rushed into the question of whether or not Paine is here to carry out Bevelle's execution order.

Perhaps not. Not many predators announce themselves from behind to avoid startling their prey.

Perhaps that's why she didn't get up, and doesn't now. She never tried to flee, or even to conduct a proper defense.

Or perhaps she trusted her Guardian implicitly, such that she wouldn't need to worry about such things...

Her Besaid-beaded earring clinks quietly against her neck as she shakes her head, humbly rejecting the compliment. She is not so gauche as to pursue the matter further, though, not when the stranger first names herself, then names one of her very darkest memories.

Perhaps they return there together. Certainly Yuna does. Her eyes are suddenly not distant but agonizingly present, present at a site of unimaginable carnage. The word itself isn't enough to have taken her back. At least, not Mi'ihen by itself.

It was 'Mi'ihen,' intersected with pain...

Her little nostrils flare, scenting gore. But her lips automatically quirk into an aegis of a smile. A summoner's expression. One she mastered upon those shores, afterwards, surrounded by the living and the dead.

It is, despite everything, an extremely lovely smile. And the simple act of it seems to allow her to see Paine, rather than pain, much more; the latter leaves her gaze, and unclouded, she possesses a sudden clarity.

A terrible compassion for this other survivor. She may not have been there, but in a way neither was Yuna, Yuna was kept to the dubious safety of the cliffs above the Djose shore. No one knows better than she: just to be there for the aftermath was tragedy enough.

"I'm sorry," she says, clearing a suddenly thickened throat.

There is a characteristic beat of silence, but perhaps less notable than usual. Such moments can be signs of respect, after all; she honors the memory of those lost.

Then she coughs a second time, at Paine's assumption, accompanied by a second clink of those blue, white, and yellow beads.

"No," she says, quietly but firmly. "I'm not hiding."

Unconsciously, she turns her wounded palm back upright, and lets it breathe the air.

Her smile turns... sweeter, less an excellent disguise and more a curiously real, unbitter acceptance of her circumstances. A dimple forms in her right cheek.

"They know where I'm going," she elaborates, lifting her chin a bare inch. Dignity exudes from her, but not pride. Hers is a complex expression. "If they choose to try to stop me... they'll wait for me at the Scar."

At the base of Mt. Gagazet.

At the beginning of the end of a pilgrimage.

How casually she says it.

"So, Paine, there's no need to worry," she reassures the other woman, in complete earnest. "Please don't feel that... you must go to any trouble to lie, on our account."

If she's questioned by the authorities. Authorities likely to punish any allies very severely.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

To be sure, Lulu wouldn't hesitate to act if she sensed a threat. ...But if she set ablaze every stranger who came to see Yuna, Spira would have a much lower population. Nevertheless, Yuna's politeness provides an easy test of its own.

Paine, the woman identifies herself. She further identifies Bevelle, and Lulu inclines her head again. No answer about her own curiousity, of course, but an answer for the moment regardless. Mi'ihen...

There, but from a distance. Lulu herself could say that, only a little differently. She was not down with Luzzu in the thick of the battle. Indeed, Paine must have been at some distance seeing Yuna, for Lulu not to recall seeing her.

Her silence remains, and she watches Paine's reaction as Yuna answers. "Practical of you to worry about it," the Guardian notes in some approval, "But it's as Yuna says. ...And should they try, we will guard her from them, too."

'We'. But there isn't a 'we' present outside of Yuna at the moment. Presumably there are others. Maybe that's a statement of its own.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
Tidus may soon notice a complete absence of cheering. Because Rikku simply isn't any longer. It's not known to many people that Rikku can be quiet when she wants to be.
 
She has fast hands, sure! But quiet is not typically an adjective attached to her. And yet, quiet is what she is being right now.
 
The grass faintly sways in the gentle breeze of the calmlands...
 
... but some grass sways in an opposite direction to what is natural. It's parting slowly, the rustling of her passing obfuscated by the gentle breeze.
 
Then slowly, she lifts her Machina binoculars.
 
The light of the sun might just gently glint off of it in the grass...
 
A faint mechanical whirr as her view of Paine changes. Rikku immediately lowers her binoculars. It was just a split second look.
 
"A woman?!" She whispers, muted to herself. "... gotta admit, I'm kind of a fan of her style."
 
From a distance, she didn't realize that detail, and would have guessed otherwise.
 
Raising it again, she takes a closer look at the object sticking out of her rucksack, that's wrapped up. She can't be certain but...
 
"Sus-picious."
 
On any normal day Rikku would ordinarily not be too fussed about this, but having a Machina rifle being shoved into her back by a Yevon warrior monk has changed her opinion.
 
Lowering it again, she simply lays... in wait.
 
Rikku trusts Lulu to keep Yuna safe if anything goes wrong, but two Guardians are always better than one she figures.
 

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
<SoundTracker> Matt Nathanson - Angel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jXgeW8t5L8

Paine does return in the way that Yuna does, but somewhere else, sometime else. That's the thing about the spiritual world: you can journey together to different places.

That's the thing about Spira: its shores have frothed red more than once, even within Paine's young lifetime.

But maybe Paine can't really get back there so easily anymore. It was not so recent for her as it was for Yuna. The sadness doesn't go away, but it sinks in, like water into sand. After a while it's just as heavy, but the sparkle is gone.

She's back before Yuna, thus. And waiting, if not in sympathy then perhaps in understanding.

What she cannot understand is that smile.

Yuna looks so peaceful as she says this ridiculous thing. She looks beautiful, really, the way a bride becomes beautiful by wearing her future. She reassures Paine.

Lip curling to bare disdainful teeth, Paine chuffs. Giving her waterskin cap an extra half-tighten, she re-slings it at her side. Turning her back on the young Summoner, she finds herself by necessity perpendicular to her Guardian, her face visible in profile to Lulu. She lacks the privacy she had sought in turning away.

The privacy to be angry. At Yuna's stupidity. At Lulu's falseness. Maybe she'd have even said something.

It's then, however, that she sees that a bit of grass disobeys the breeze. She does not let her awareness show in either face or posture. But she realizes that her making some sardonic comment to Lulu is as pointless as anything else she's just heard about. These two are never going to get to Mt. Gagazet to find out.

The range. The glint of glass, perhaps of blonde hair. It can only be an Al-Bhed--at least one. Here, no doubt, to cut short another pilgrimage. Either that or Yevon managed to crank out a Crimson Squad after all. That wouldn't be better.

It's sadistic to warn them. Pointless. Needlessly dangerous to Paine. Yuna is probably as good at lying with her body as she is with her words; the Al-Bhed would be tipped off the moment Paine said don't-look-now-but. The anger is all gone. Paine almost finds it funny, now.

"That's the one thing I can do for you," she tells Yuna, looking back at her. "Lying is no trouble at all." She gives Lulu a look, and a second nod. If it is neutral, it is amiable. Lulu should understand.

Stepping back through the tall grass, Paine disappears from view soon. Shaking her head, she wishes she'd stopped to refill her water somewhere else. If the Summoner was going to die, better for her to see it on a sphere. If Yuna's story was to be a tragedy, better for it to be a history as well; viewed on a sphere, retroactively inevitable.

What happened to the Crusaders angers her, but Paine has no particular soft spot--nor animosity--for true heretics like Yuna. She feels no team spirit among fellow drifters, no honor among thieves. All she and Yuna have in common is that the Church might kill them before Sin does. Paine owes it to Yuna almost as a matter of respect to try and be the one who gets away, when that day comes. Should two minnows rally together when the shark comes, or flee as fast as they can in opposite directions?

No pilgrimage formed against Yevon may prosper.

Paine had been traipsing openly through the grass, but she's unconsciously started to hide her passage more. What does Summoner Yuna even think she is doing? Excommunicated. Walking all but unarmed towards her enemies. All for the slim chance of what?

...helping?

Paine has reached the edge of this copse of tall grass. If she takes another step, the Al-Bhed will see that she has left. This is desirable for Paine. Once she's out of sight, the Al-Bhed can do what they were going to do. Probably call backup; this has the feel of a scout to Paine. Not that a scout couldn't take a shot if they got one.

Lulu can maybe handle it this time, maybe not. But it won't be the last time. One way or another, it will only get worse for the heretic Summoner.

The next breeze passes through Paine, and makes of her silver hair a drifting mountain cloud. It's like it filters right through her ribs, filling her lungs without her needing to breathe. It hurts the way a sharp slap hurts. All Paine has to do is ignore it and let it subside to an ache.

Soon the seafoam surface of the grass ripples smooth. Rikku can no longer follow Paine with her engineered lenses, nor her sharp eyes. The warrior's shoulders no longer resist the air. It seems she has gone.

There's no sound but the rustle of stalks and a distant warksong.

OST - I WISH I HAD AN ANGEL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COpqZtgVJ-M

The tallgrass rips open like a moogle vest on Fat Chocobo, and Paine's tackles Rikku bodily. Her arm hooks the smaller girl's neck from the front, forcing her backwards, and her boot slams down right where Rikku would really prefer to be stepping right now. This pops Rikku almost neatly off the ground, and against Paine's chest. Amidst a thrashing rustle of grass, Rikku feels the taller woman snake her free arm around, clinching a V around Rikku's neck. With a twisting pressure that nearly tosses the thief from her feet again, she shoulders down into the hold, then slaps a hand over her mouth like a padlock.

"Go for it, I dare you," Paine whispers harshly, in reference to Rikku's blades. "Give me an excuse."

Standing up straight, Paine hauls Rikku to her tiptoes, which seems to surprise her at least as much as it surprises Rikku. "Tiny," she remarks. "How many of you are there?"

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

When Lulu speaks again, Yuna gives her a brief, adoring glance. Whether the black mage is her only Guardian or one of many, it's obvious that their dedication to their charge is not at all a one-way street. She feels no joy at the thought of them having to guard her from Yevon, or from any other danger, for that matter. But that they stand by her still, despite everything... that lights the warm little lamp in her heart, and it cannot but shine through her eyes.

Her oblivious eyes; her attention split between curiosity about Paine and affection for Lulu, it's obvious that she has no idea an Al Bhed is approaching. Just as she had no idea Paine meant to insult her, having interpreted her comment in the friendliest possible way. But she does pick up, immediately, on Paine's disdain as she turns away; and though her mood thereafter may be somewhat mercurial, Yuna's eyes, first on her back and then on her returned face, seem to pierce straight through her.

Which is rather unfair. How can someone so oblivious to the world be so attuned to it at the same time? Does she pick and choose, running away from the parts she doesn't like? Or is her innocent heart so gapingly open a receiver that some wounding barbs simply pass straight through to the other side without touching anything within?

She seems unoffended by whatever it is she sees within Paine; one could retreat to the position that she might be impossible to offend, but for her recently taking the ultimate stand at Yevon's door. Maybe it just doesn't register on the titanic Richter scale her heart has been shaken up by. Or maybe it means everything to her, the opinion of a single stranger, but she just... accepts it, accepts her, for what she is.

Whether Paine respects her or no; approves of her or no; believes in her or no; Yuna will die for her all the same, while never once thinking of it in those terms.

Her seated bow has a quiet dignity, and so does her smile.

"Fare well, and travel safely," she wishes Paine as she departs. "And... I thank you."

Once Paine's been gone for quite a while, Yuna lets out a sigh. Fishing through her obi, she finds one last green, and waves it at the nearest chocobo, on the far side of the pond.

He lifts his head eagerly.

"I hope she'll be all right, all by herself like that." Yuna is looking up at Lulu, not over the yellow cutie pie over there, so she must be downcast indeed. Regret, something she rarely allows herself, seeps into her tone like a puddle. "Lulu, did I... say something I shouldn't have? I think I... made her uncomfortable."

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Lulu knows well that light. She knows it in ways she does not know Paine. She does not know the meaning of Paine's expression there--she does not appear to notice what Paine notices, or rather, that Paine notices it. Her attention is largely on Yuna and on the world around them. She maintains the same neutral frown, and when Paine nods to her she inclines er head back. There is a certain dignity in Yuna, yes...

And Lulu may not see Paine again. It may be a thing to wonder about, in time. But not the path her life is to take. Her nod is farewell enough for her. Lulu looks after Paine as she goes... an then looks to Yuna at the sigh.

"I get the impression she's accustomed to being alone," Lulu opines to Yuna, and she hears that regret. Her look then is gentler than anything she would have shown a stranger. "No," she says simply. "...I don't think she would have been comfortable regardless of what you said." Lulu has drawn something of an impession of Paine, so far, and she considers it. But first, "...Don't worry. You did well. As empty as the Calm Lands are, she won't be the last to wonder."

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
From this distance she can't really hear what they're saying, she'd like to know, but she understands any closer would compromise her position.
 
She can imagine Yuna, being her kind, gentle self, treating the stranger with more respect and less wariness than one ought to after all that she's gone through. She can imagine Lulu, taciturn, guarded, but not unfriendly in any way.
 
She doesn't yet have a good enough read on this stranger. Worst case scenario is a Warrior Monk in disguise of course. There are much less threatening explanations, but her mind has to fixate on the possibility at least.
 
As Paine starts to move away from Yuna and Lulu, Rikku breathes a sigh of relief. Though she still follows her movement as long as she can, considering it a long shot that she's the scout or precursor some attack.
 
Shifting about on her elbows in the grass, she's leaning to try and get a good look, when suddenly a rustle of movement causes her to twist abruptly. Only to find herself tackled. "G-MmMMmM-!"
 
And her ability to speak cut off wholly by the hand clamped around her face. Suddenly flailing her arms, in something of a panic as she's hauled up off the ground. It wasn't so long ago her own people ambushed her like this.
 
It wasn't so long ago that her own people took Yuna, so lightning fast that she couldn't respond. And she finds herself angered by the idea it's happening again.
 
As she's dragged off the ground, she kicks her legs, squealing incoherently behind the muzzle of her arms, trying to ineffectively kick backwards, but those strong arms won't be denied, she hardly has any leverage from this position, much less no foundation or footing to try and break free.
 
The implied threat is evident. Rikku slowly starts to raise her hands in submission to show that she's not reaching for anything. "mmwee" She answers as best as she can behind that hand, which given how tightly it's pressing, not really. Still it sounds like 'three' doesn't it? Something glints off her hands. If Paine looks, there's two far too large rings on these girl's fingers.
 
Too plain to be decorative, and each one forms a junction to a short length of metal that juts off at a perpendicular from the band. Paine would recognize them of course from her time in the Crusaders.
 
They're grenade pins.
 
There's only a half second to respond before there's twin disorienting noises from the grass around them, and two great white flashes that's brighter than looking into the sun at midday as the world at close range fades into a bright white haze.
 
Those who were at the wedding of course will recognize them despite being at a distance, they're Al Bhed flash bombs. The same tactic she used to distract the Warrior Monks to give them time to escape. It's pretty much impossible to miss it.
 
In the blinding scurry of movement afterwards, Paine only feels her quarry slipping away if she hasn't already let go.
 
And when the spots start to clear from vision and the ringing in the ears is not so intense...
 
"MEAN!" Rikku shouts, because the ringing in her ears is still intense, as she stumbles away like a swaying drunk, disoriented from her middle ear swimming from self-inflicted PAIN - hold the e. "YOU DIDN'T EVEN GIVE ME TIME TO PUT EARPLUGS IN! NOW DON'T EVE-EVEN-THINK-"
 
A clumsy step causes the girl to fall down into the tall grass, causing a muffled noise in the cushioned grass which might not even be heard at all. Until she starts shouting again.
 
"-THINK OF MOVING MISSY!"
 
And now she's crawling away in the grass as she frantically keeps attempting to get back to her feet, while looking over her shoulder, "-OR ELSE! SEND MY WHOLE ARSENAL OF OUCHIE MAKERS YOUR WAY!"
 
Submitted for your approval: One grizzled Al Bhed assassin.
 

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    SOMEWHERE ELSE:
    
    "YEAH! I finally beat that race! In your face, birds!!" Tidus cheers, pumping a fist.
    "Great! Excellent work, sonny!" the chocobo guy cheers with him. "You wanna give the next training race a try!"
    
    ".....uhhh, hey, come to think of it, where's Rikku?" This is both a distraction and a legitimate question; she'd been cheering him on so loudly a minute before, now that Tidus is no longer wrestling with a hellbird to make it go where he wants without getting smacked in the face by *different* hellbirds, her absence is a very loud hole.
    
    "Not sure... Maybe she wandered off?" the chocobo guy suggests.
    
    "...I'll get back to you on that next race," Tidus concludes, then jogs off. "Rikku! Heyyy, Rikku! Where'd you go??"
    
    Almost as if timed, a flashbang goes off a short distance away. Tidus happened to be facing away from it when it goes off, which is lucky, because that saves him from being blinded. "--Rikku!!"
    
    An instant later, Tidus rushes in on the tableau between Rikku and Paine. He doesn't know the latter at all, and he doesn't care; all he knows is that some stranger is attacking Rikku and make her stumble around drunkenly in the high grass.
    
    "HEY! YOU!!" he roars, drawing Brotherhood as he drops into a combat stance. "What d'you think you're doing to my best friend?!"

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

"Three?" Paine presses for confirmation, affecting a skeptical tone just to be sure she's not lied to. But it's hard to believe this girl could be all that hard-boiled. "Three is work..." she trails off, looking at Rikku's hand.

"...able," Paine finishes in a daze, as she sees what Rikku is wearing on her fingers.

Releasing the Al Bhed at once, Paine doesn't even have time to step back before the world goes white. She thinks she is dead for a hot second, courtesy of a truly devoted Al Bhed assassin, who would do anything to avoid being taken alive. She doesn't have time to internalize how she feels about that. All she can think is that it's a little funny how she lasted about one minute flat as a hero. She really wasn't cut out for it, huh?

At least, during that short career, she did what she set out to do.

Then the flash and the sound die, and Paine doesn't. She's staggering, a hand to one eye, trying to blink and peek out of the other. She watches Rikku flop onto her back, and she can see her mouthing something that looks angry.

"What?!" Paine shouts back. She can barely hear her own voice, much less Rikku's. When Rikku attempts to get back to her feet, Paine draws her sword Gravestone with an exaggerated heave, which nearly drops her to the ground on that side. She manages to drop to that knee instead, the sword still in her hand, but reversed hastily to catch her weight, its tip sinking into the ground in a way most appropriate to its namesake. She shakes her head fiercely, trying to clear it.

"Why did you use THREE?" she demands in exasperation, not expecting the Al Bhed girl to hear. Reeling back to her feet with a shove off her sword, she slings a blob of dirt off it into the grass, and starts approaching the fallen assassin. She had asked for an excuse...

A second blond bursts onto the scene, and Paine swivels to face him instead, reluctantly giving the first some time to recover. Taking her hand away from her eye, she flicks her red eyes slightly back and forth as though trying to read his face.

"WHAT?!" she demands of Tidus as well. She has no idea what he just said. "Never mind," she decides, and flicks the tip of her sword down. At first, it seems as though she might be surrendering, or at least deescalating. Instead, she stalks sidelong, her sword slung behind her, presenting her profile so fully that she's not even facing Tidus anymore, just looking at him over her shoulder. She does not shout for Yuna and Lulu to flee; she has a feeling they'd do the opposite. Better for this to be just a vague sign of trouble.

"I like your sword," Paine says conversationally. She's able to hear her voice in her own head well enough that it sounds normal to Tidus when it comes out. Nor does her sudden surge of motion do more than add a clump of tightness to the middle of her next sentence, when she kicks off the ground and slings that heavy grey blade of hers into Tidus's blue.

"It better not rust mine."

Ripping Gravestone free, Paine thrashes her way into the start of a fencing match with Tidus. It's more of a sword-brawl, really, with how aggressively she presses, with how wild her heavy swings are. He can tell, however, that her balance is thrown, that her footwork isn't quite landing where she wants it to. Judging by the line in her smooth brow, left bare by that swept-back hair of hers, she's aware of that too.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
Rikku is still looking back over her shoulder, and while she can barely hear Paine, between that and some super rudimentary lip reading she works it out...
 
"I used TWO!" The ringing in her ears is still strong, but not so strong that she feels the need to shout any longer, "I'm the third! That was the whole - OH FORGET ABOUT IT!"
 
Okay perhaps she feels some SMALL reason to shout.
 
Making another attempt to clamber back to her feet, her eyes dart forward at the sound of her best friend's voice, "TIDUS! Love the timing ... I mean I could have handled her but - if you wanna back me up - I won't complain!"
 
If she can handle her why does she sound so relieved?
 
Rikku scrambles a short distance away, feeling like she's too discombobulated right now to aim properly OR risk going in close. "Anyhow - you sound pretty confident about your chances-!"
 
Abruptly she pivots around and tosses a bag of something... Paine's way.
 
The chucked object flies through the air in a lazy arc right into the path of the pair's fencing match, en route to Paine herself. It's easy enough for the former Crusader to parry if she desires to. Though if she does, then it spills open into a sparkling pink dusting...
 
... of a sleeping powder that brings on a sudden abrupt fatigue and drowsiness. Even if it goes unintercepted any kind of impact to the ground or her body will cause some of it to spill out and float briefly in the Calm Lands breeze.
 
"-but everyone is until light's out!"
 
It's a dirty trick, but Rikku has never been one to fight fair, especially when she's being bushwhacked by strange women while spying in the grass.
 

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Yuna glances down at a green smear on her unwounded palm, then over at the golden birdbrain retreating with his prize. He gargles a wark of gluttonous pleasure almost as much as he gurgles it.

She can't help but relax a little, in the face of THAT. A little tension between her shoulder blades drains out. Lulu drains a lot more with her expression, and the rest with her words. Her head was already bowed, but it falls further forward, bringing her soft hair forward with it, and her earring also.

"I know."

She was very small indeed, the last time SHE was accustomed to being alone, but it's never left her. Of the many punishments Yevon inflicted upon her of late, keeping her in solitary was in some ways the cruelest, for her and for those she loves, who love her. She stood up to them alone in body but not in spirit, and not because of the fayth. She was strong for her Guardians, her family, her friends. And now that they're reunited... she never wants to be alone again.

Nor does she wish such a fate upon anyone else. Even if it is by choice... it's still terribly sad, for one whose happiness is engendered by those who surround her.

"Thanks, Lulu," she adds, as to her praise, never given lightly. Shifting her weight, she leans into the other woman, just for a moment. "I don't mind... people wondering. But... a pilgrimage is to end pain. Not to cause it..." At least, not in strangers. From almost under Lulu's chin, she lifts her own, meeting her eyes around the sharp corner of her cheek with -- not an apology, she's done with those -- but a silent compassion, to go with all that affection.

And lo, a distant double explosion. It is no lightning; neither of them would be fooled -- both of them, black mage and summoner, have an exceptionally intimate relationship with thunder.

Yuna pauses.

A matter of weeks ago, she might have asked, hesitantly, 'Is that...?'

Instead she pitches forward onto both palms -- wince -- rather than lunge directly upright into a headbutt-uppercut of the innocent Lulu.

"Rikku!" she gasps. And, half-turning even as she rises, hastily offers her Guardian a hand up.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    "Uh huh," Tidus says, absolutely unconvinced by the idea that Drunk-Walking Rikku could have handled Random Goth Sword Lady. Seriously, if Auron and Lulu had a baby, she might look like Paine.
    
    ...
    
    WHY DID HE GIVE HIMSELF THAT MENTAL IMAGE?? WHY???
    
    It's a good thing that Paine can't hear him anyway. Tidus takes a moment to shake his head and focus on the fight. Of course, then Paine puts him off-kilter *again* by complimenting him on his sword.
    
    "Uhh, thanks?" he utters, blinking at her. "Kinda weird to say something nice about a sword in a middle of a fi--theeeere it is," he says when she charges and swings her own sword at him. He blocks her just in time, and the two of them shift into exchanging sword blows. Fortunately for him, her moves are clearly not as great as they could be, for as hard and as heavy as she hits. He's pretty sure he can disarm her and knock her down, especially with Rikku here to help--
    
    Aha! Sleeping dust! Tidus shoots Rikku a wink when she hurls that sparkly pink dust Paine's way, then attempts to take advantage of Paine's poor footing to sword-shove her right into the stuff. "Nighty-night!!"

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Who was that woman? What takes her to the road, and the run?

A question for a faraway Lulu, maybe. This one has Yuna to account for. Her red eyes stay on the other woman at first, through that first look and farther.

Lulu does not dwell on her own experience with being alone--not here, with Yuna in front of her. She has no intention of allowing Yuna to be left alone now. Regardless of whether she intended it in the first place.

Lulu regards Yuna's response in quiet as Yuna leans into her. She listens, as much as anything, and long before she has composed her thoughts for any kind of reply, there is the explosion--there are the explosions. Lulu's gaze darts in that direction, and as Yuna ofers her the hand up, she takes it without questioning. "Rikku," Lulu agrees, and turns before taking off in that direction with Yuna. There may not be much time to waste.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Paine finds a moment, during her swordplay with Tidus, to toss Rikku a drily incredulous look. Why does a girl this chatty even carry grenades that deafen? Seems like a recipe for unhappiness.

She's recovering now from that light and sound, but it put her on a bad footing early, and Tidus is a lot better than she expected. A-lot a-lot, actually; she thought he was going to be some muscle she'd dispose of quickly, only to have to face some more, or at best end up chasing the first girl and her goggles through the grass in an effort to keep her from alerting her fellow Al Bhed to the location of the Summoner. She was never too optimistic about the situation here, but her pessimism was future-facing. Turns out she may not even reach the future. Especially if...

There it is, as Tidus put it. Rikku hurls some other object at her, and Paine disengages from Tidus's blade with a swivelling screech of metal and... water, maybe? Who knows. With a pirouette, Paine leaps out of his range and turns her back on the projectile as if to shield her face, then, at the last moment, swings her heavy blade horizontally, directly through it. She's feeling proud of herself the moment it's obvious that she'll connect, right up until the moment it explodes into a pink cloud.

Ducking beneath the cloud, Paine tries to feint her way past Tidus. Instead, when they lock blades, he shoves her right back into the cloud.

Paine drops down to her feet again, only to find her knees wobbling. "Cute," she comments with the little breath she takes to push gas from her lungs. Then she closes her mouth tight and springs back through the cloud, keeping it between her and Tidus, so he has to either go around or hold his--

Is he wearing a blitzball uniform?

Somebody up there doesn't like Paine today.

When she hits the ground again from her deep jump back, her legs give out, and she falls to one knee again. For an instant, she appears quite helpless, her sword reversed once more to keep her upright. But with a shrug of her shoulder, she drops that well-wrapped rectangle off her shoulder across her knee, using the stable surface to aim. She's remarkably calm for someone who just gut drugged; those red eyes of hers glare coldly at Tidus. With her free hand, she grasps the wrapping.

Then the sleeping powder suddenly yawns open, a twisting gap of clean, clear air ripping into existence amidst its sparkly cloud. The front of the bandage-like wrapping has blown open as well, and flutters, sizzling at the edges with red embers, as the still-hot barrel of a heretical Machina rifle stares at Tidus with cyclopean hostility. The bullet is his problem.

Paine's problem is staying awake. She closes her eyes tightly to squeeze sand out of them--metaphorical or literal, she can't tell. Then she tosses her sword away like so much trash, rests her half-wrapped carbine across her opposite forearm to keep her dazed aim steady, and swings it towards Rikku.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
The distinct lack of malice in Paine's looks and gestures - as opposed to her ACTIONS starts to bug her, yet she's too disoriented to really trust that impression while her friend is staring down a blade. Rikku keeps her distance, until Paine leaps back and her legs give out.
 
Knowing the powder is working, she warily starts to approach. "Hey - enough with the tough act. Give it up already. We're not going-"
 
And then Rikku sees Paine start shrugging that wrapped up rectangle to her knee. Which causes Rikku's eyes to flare open in sudden recognition.
 
"TIDUS-!" She's too late to say the word Gun, when the shot suddenly rips towards him.
 
Rikku suddenly charges in, aiming to take that rifle away from her, or at least dismantle it. "You're not getting away with-"
 
Though as Paine suddenly swivels around to aim the rifle her way in a way that beats her, she suddenly starts thinking BETTER of that plan, but can't stop the momentum of that charge at that point. "-this." Her statement ends in a squeak. Rikku starts lifting her Targe. It's poor defense against a Machina weapon. She knows.
 
Suddenly she doesn't have any method of attack IN HER HANDS. ... At all. And as quick as her hands are she doubts they're quick enough to beat Paine to the trigger.
 
It might be a strange then at the moment, that she focuses mid-charge on lessons from someone who is oft-patient with her... and had seen no results for her efforts. As if it were some last ditch effort to beat Paine's finger.
 
KRA-KOOM!
 
In a twist of cruel irony and fate, Lulu and Yuna DO hear a sound like thunder across the calm lands as they approach. And see a flash of lightning as a single, small arc of electricity forms in the air - and smell ozone as it descends upon Paine.
 
This is followed by a prolonged shriek of Rikku's charge being interrupted by her actually summoning forth magical energy for a spell for the first time ever... just... not the spell she ever would have wanted, "AAaaAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaAAAaAaaaaa-!"
 
That charge of hers ends with Rikku tumbling to the ground for the second time in this battle, and rolling in the dirt and grass... before...
 
... well it looks like she's cowering there now doesn't it?
 

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    That's an experienced and hardened guardian for you!! It helps that Paine's been recently blinded and deafened, and Tidus has merely been annoyed by birds. Honestly, considering those two conditions, Paine fights alarmingly well. Tidus has seen and heard Rikku's flashbangs before, so he knows how effective they are up close. The fact that Paine can do stuff like *pirouette* is super impressive, honestly.
    
    Of course, as far as he knows she's trying to kill his friend, so he's not THAT impressed so much as deeply concerned.
    
    (The water blade *is* kind of weird though, isn't it? It's like hardened water, except you'd think that would be ice, except it's not. Tidus spent a lot of time wondering how it works until he finally decided to just let it rock. ...so to speak.)
    
    When Paine does indeed fall into the cloud of sleeping powder and drops to one knee, he pumps a fist. "Yes! Got 'er!" No need to chase her in there--she just needs to keel over, or at least get so woozy they can tie her up or something. He doesn't want her *dead*, after all. Though, yes, he could have easily held his breath for a gas cloud fight if he'd decided that's what needed to happen.
    
    Of course, then Paine shoots him with a forbidden machina weapon, and honestly, that staggers Tidus more than the bullet, which lacks the aerodynamics to be deadly. That doesn't mean it doesn't *hurt*, though; it's basically a gut-punch at high speed, and he goes *HURK* as he bends nearly double and staggers backwards, caught completely off-guard.
    
    "Guh," he utters, barely able to catch *any* breath now. When he does, he hisses, "S-so those guys from Bevelle *did* send you...!"
    
    But as he's recovering from her shot, she's swinging towards Rikku, who's caught off-guard her *own* charge--only to summon a bolt of lightning. Really, it's not surprising that Rikku's magical element *is* lightning; it's just a deeply unfortunate turn of events. Because...
    
    'AAaaAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaAAAaAaaaaa-!'
    
    ...yeah. That. Tidus can only hope that the others saw/heard all this ruckus and are coming running now.

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

By the she bursts through the tall grass onto the clearing that's been trampled by battle, Yuna has heard Rikku fighting, Tidus fighting, a gunshot she finds difficult to ascribe to either of them, and thunder, which-- well, same. Especially considering the extremely familiar scream.

What she actually SEES, in a split second, is Tidus getting up, Rikku cowering, and Paine about to shoot her. There's no time to ask questions; there's no time to explain.

What everyone ELSE sees is a blur of pink into white into blue.

Yuna lunges between them, arms spread beautifully wide.

Her back facing the Al Bhed.

And what everyone else HEARS is a single word, ejected from her lips at battlefield force -- and yet -- for all its desperation and urgency -- still a lovely sound. The way it breaks halfway through makes it almost two notes, two syllables.

"STOP!"

Her eyes should be blazing, but the light behind them is gentle. It should be a command, but it's much more a plea.

Except for the way that her body now stands directly in the path of any possible bullet the dark warrior might fire. For all that it's a slender pillar, it might as well be made of adamantite. She is absolutely resolute.

She is Yuna...

And if any more blood will be shed here and now, it shall only be hers.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Lulu feels the charge of electric magic and hears the crack of thunder. She cannot be certain from where it comes in the moment--the chaos of the battle has all three moving, after all, and she is not close enough to differentiate. What she can hear is Rikku's shriek. She has heard a gunshot. ere is no room, indeed, for questions of any sort.

Especially not with what Yuna has planned. Lulu sees it without having to see it; Yuna is placing herself in the center, clearly, and that is what is happening here. So the black mage's eyes take into account each player on this stage with red certainty. Tidus, still rising, behind. Rikku, cowering before. And the strange woman she did not expect to see again, in the center. Lulu spends little time on her surprise. It is still a heartbeat from when she has arrived, and for Lulu that heartbeat lasts ages as she sees, thinks... and judges.

It would be wise to cut down this assailant immediately. It would be prudent to destroy her weapon outright if possible, but certainly to move her from Yuna's proximity. It would be the certain thing, to use her magic and attempt to strike her down while she is distracted. Two things stop her from making this choice, and only two.

The first is that she sees what Yuna is trying to do, knows what she worried about moments ago when they were talking, understands the judgement she has made.

The second is the particular make of Paine's firearm. She recognizes it instantly, understands where it could have come from, and understands possibilities in that moment that lend credence to Yuna's choice. Lulu has a choice to make, as well.

Magic hums in the air--power seethes, the elements hastening to obey the black mage's command. Her expression is steady, her lips pressed together, her severe look all the more severe now. And...

It fades unused. Lulu recognizes Yuna's choice... and makes her own, to respect it in this moment. The power in the air is left in the air.

Stop, Yuna called. Lulu gives no instruction. Instead, she asks a question.

"What is going on here?"

She looks down to Rikku, casts knowing eyes on Paine's firearm, and then looks to Tidus and finally to Paine herself again for an answer.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Tidus seems to have weathered the shot--disappointing but not surprising for a swordsman like that. If Paine can hang on until she gets her senses back about her, perhaps the advantage will be hers--not that she knows it. But no elixir can remove the annoyance caused by birds...

All she needs to do is shoot this Al Bhed assassin someplace nice and fatal.

Lightning rips down Paine's Machina weapon, sizzling up the muscles of her arm and zinging the pulp of her teeth. Clenching her jaw hard, she manages to keep her finger off the trigger despite how it spasms. Expelling a hard breath, she reasserts her aim, horrified for a moment that Rikku has left her sights. But she hasn't gone all that far.

In fact, she's lying there like a sitting duck.

War is a sick thing. You can't be a soldier unless you can find it a little funny. If that swordsman hadn't come to save his friend, Paine could take her prisoner now. But with him still a threat, and Paine dazed by grenades and hazed by that pink powder...

Well, Paine wouldn't have aimed at her in the first place if she wasn't prepared to watch her die. This girl's genuine fear and helplessness stings. But it does not cause her to hesitate.

Matching eyes of unmatching colors do.

The sleeping powder almost causes the sort of tragedy they record movie spheres about. The famous Summoner, dead on the ground at the hands of Paine's one uncharacteristic moment of conscience. Paine, carrying out the bidding of her Yevon Maesters after all. Her last ditch-effort to avert that comes down to doing everything wrong--everything Gippal taught her not to do. She flinches. She's already squeezed the trigger, so she pulls it, and hard. She doesn't brace the recoil. The carbine bucks off the top of her forearm as she jerks it back.

The bullet comes so close that it passes through Yuna's hair, sending brown locks fluttering out like the the wings of a frightened starling. It sets the beads of her sidelock clattering like wind chimes. It is gone almost before it arrived; nothing but aftermath.

And Paine is left kneeling, stricken. These strangers cannot know how unusual it is for her to tremble like this.

Detached sleeves form either a wall or a sunset, depending on how the sleeping powder is hitting at any given moment. Paine's gaze tracks back from over Yuna's shoulder, where they had followed the path of the round she fired, and meets Yuna's instead. They affix there, cold for all the heat of their hue, and linger... search. She shakes her head faintly, her the line of her lips hard.

"...get out of my way," she tells Yuna levelly, before shifting the tone of her voice higher and louder, in a way that tells Lulu that she is speaking to her, now. "These two are here to stop your Pilgrimage, and they won't be the last."

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
Once upon a time, a Machina activated when little Rikku got curious. She'd been playing along the beach near a shoreline salvage operation. When you're trying to create a new home for a displaced people, you don't have the luxury of babysitters. Her Brother truly was her keeper, and while Rikku may criticize his recklessness in what came next, she doesn't fault that he tried to protect her.
 
Summoning forth magical power from one of his tattoos, a bolt of lightning struck the Machina, and carried through the water to indirectly strike her as well. Ever since then, the mere sound of thunder or the thought of being shocked is enough to send her into incoherency for a while.
 
So the realization that the only Black Magic she's ever cast is the one she fears and hates the most?
 
Certainly Paine is aiming a rifle at her! But imminent death at the hands of a bullet briefly plays second fiddle to the existential dread that her worst fear - something that nearly killed her as a child - that that thing is INSIDE OF HER...
 
... she needs a minute to reassert herself as 'the Merriest' and a minute she does not have.
 
Because she hears Yuna demanding a 'STOP!' and hears Lulu asking what's going on, and looks up JUST in time to see a bullet scream by Yuna's head. The sight of THAT? That's more than enough to snap her out of anything. "YUNIE!" Rikku cries in alarm, as she tries to scramble up to her feet, trying and failing at first to actually get there.
 
The emotional shock to her system of going from being scared of the thunder inside her to seeing a bullet whiz by her Cousin's head that her nerves are shot enough that she's shaking, and can't quite get back up to her feet.
 
"Yunie - she's after - get behind-" The accusation though startles her enough that looks down her threat and gets driven into babbling, "-What!? How'd you... not any- I MEAN KIND OF?!"
 
Wanting to stop Yuna's Pilgrimage is actually a complicated subject for Rikku and Tidus, but one they stand in solidarity on. Unfortunately calling her out on this only makes her seem more suspicious.
 
"We're her Guardians!"
 
Rikku manages on her trembling limbs to get up just behind Yuna, where she reaches around the outside of her left leg and points at Paine with a shaking finger.
 
"And YOU'RE trying to trick us! You're here on orders from Bevelle!" She says, as if backing up Tidus' own earlier statement on that, "But Tidus and me - we see right through you!"
 

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    'STOP!' Yuna screams, and then interposes herself directly between Rikku and the stranger's gun. Tidus's heart stops when it goes off and the bullet only barely misses Yuna's head, and then it goes into hyperdrive to make up for lost time. He clutches his chest even as he scrambles to his feet, the pain from getting shot earlier all but forgotten in the wake of terror-borne adrenaline rushing through his body.
    
    But before he can try to tackle her out of the way, or tackle Paine before she can shoot again and not miss, Lulu demands to know what's going on, and the strange sword/gunwoman has the unmitigated gall to call him and Rikku out for being the bad guys. He jaw outright drops in outrage.
    
    Like, sure, okay, she's not ENTIRELY wrong about Tidus and Rikku wanting to stop Yuna's pilgrimage, but that's in a totally different context than what this lady's presenting, which Rikku spends a moment sputtering about while Tidus wraps his head around the accusation in the first place. And at the end of that--
    
    "We're her Guardians!" he says at the exact moment Rikku does, unwittingly chorusing with her. He shoots her a look and has to stifle a laugh, though he can't quite hold back a grin from flashing across his face. Rikku stays on the ball, though, following up with his earlier accusation about her being from Bevelle. "Yeah!" he says heatedly, his water-sword back in his grip. "So cut it out with the funny business and stay down like you're supposed to, lady!! If you do, we won't hurt you!"
    
    Tidus remains on guard, though. In his experience, nobody ever surrenders and makes it easy for them. If she's really here as an assassin, she'll probably try to shoot one of them again, or make a break for it!
    
    ...It's too bad Tidus isn't a little smarter, or he'd stop to wonder why a Bevelle assassin would have pulled her shot when she had a perfect chance to kill Yuna just a minute ago.

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Yuna's skin prickles with the surge and release of Lulu's elemental might, but -- though her heart swells with that silent show of support -- she does not look away. Rikku screams her name, and if anything she spreads her arms even wider, stretching her slight self as broadly as possible, even her fingertips straining -- and she does not look away.

Not when Paine pulls the trigger. Not when Paine desperately sabotages her shot. And not when a bullet neatly shears a soft -- both soft of touch, and soft of hue -- lock of hair off the side of Yuna's head. Just a little bit. It tangles, immediately, in the rest, like a fallen branch caught in a greater canopy.

But when Paine meets her eyes, what she finds there is folly indeed.

Yuna was not -- is not -- afraid, because she doesn't have to be afraid.

To Tidus and Rikku, she pled gently to a stranger. But Paine sees something else. Paine sees Yuna's trust -- trust in her intentions, trust in her humanity. They only met for a few minutes, but... whatever Yuna saw was enough for her to believe in.

No doubt even now she thinks that faith repaid. Her lips, the truest sunset of all, soften even as Paine's stiffen, as though there's a finite amount of hardness in the world and she must redress this latest imbalance with an increase in her own grace. And isn't that exactly what a summoner is?

She does not get out of the way.

There is no anger in her, and any distress there was is fading by the second. Paine's own words explain everything to her.

And then the others explain everything to Paine...

Hearing Rikku and Tidus shout their loyalty changes Yuna's smile, too. It becomes tender, tender in a way that makes her prior affection for the chocobos seem generic and pale. Tender in a way that requires no other words, no further confirmation.

They are telling the truth.

And there's a truth that they must learn, too. Not only Paine.

Yuna's lock of hair, shorn by violent misunderstanding, tumbles down her back and is lost to the embrace of the tall grass, as she steps forward, once and then again and again. Her blue skirts are like an inland sea, swallowing the green field as she floods forward. Forward, until she is close enough to offer the dark warrior a hand up.

A familiar hand.

Yuna knows her.

"Everyone here... is my friend," she tells Paine and Rikku and Tidus, simply and gently and... honestly, in that ringingly earnest way that inhabits even the smallest of her sentences. The sort of integrity that DEFIES reality rather than obscure it. An implacable will... such that if her utterance wasn't true already...

...it is now.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

'...and they won't be the last.' 'We're her Guardians!'

Lulu knows something, when that shot is fired and goes through just a little bit of Yuna's hair. But she knew it before, judged it before. So all this talk of funny business and trickery registers for her... after the shot. After the way that shot goes through Yuna's hair, not through her. Lulu sees the movement Paine had to do for that. There is perhaps a simple truth there.

Would even Lulu have been fast enough to stop the shot completely? Or would she only have done it after that? The answer to that question is unnecessary, in the world they're in, a world where Yuna made a new friend... And Lulu is obligated to hang on, and follow through that world.

"And no one here is planning to harm Yuna," Lulu continues, her tone firm. She looks to Paine, with Yuna; she looks to Rikku, and Tidus.

"And I doubt she's inclined to listen to Bevelle's orders in the first place. Though I can imagine at least some of what happened here, now that I hear from all of you."

Lulu reaches out her hand as she stops beside Rikku, her eyes on Paine now, past Yuna. "These are Yuna's Guardians. Rikku," she notes first, "And Tidus," she indicates.

"And this is a woman who just risked her life to save Yuna from you." Lulu indicates Paine, then. "Paine, of Bevelle, you said. But I can't imagine you meant recently." She shakes her head. "I don't know how this started..."

"But you're all fighting for the same purpose, right now." She pauses, then. "...Which is, admittedly, a surprise. You said you could lie for her, but this is much more than that."

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

The rifle trickles smoke up towards the sky as Paine holds it, vertically and horizontally diagonal, to her shoulder. It is aimed at no one now, but she cannot let it go. Inside the invisible sphere it creates around her, she understands everything--how to clear a jam, how to compensate visually when she has no time to adjust the sights, how to make people who want to hurt her stop moving. It is a tool, and the purpose of this tool is to build tomorrows. There came a day when those weren't free for Paine anymore.

It happened to Nooj, a long time ago, that the price of tomorrow was higher than tomorrow was worth. So that she would never be the one happy that the world had granted her death, Paine had done her best to balance that equation for herself, but she never seemed able to do so by making tomorrow worth more, never seemed able to find a way to make her days haunting the borderlands mean something to anyone, least of all Paine herself. All she could do is grow more and more miserly with her payments. To care less, about violence, about loneliness, about whatever made her keep carting around that sphere recorder long after she had anyone to look at what she recorded.

She broke a lot of rules today for being a fugitive. Why is the equation still balanced?

It's been so long since she even realized it was possible, that she nearly forgot about finding a tomorrow worth building.

It pisses you off, doesn't it? When someone understands you faster than you do. The knowing warmth of Yuna's smile, the way her kindness floods in to reclaim the ground Paine didn't notice yet that she'd ceded. The way every time Paine looks back at Yuna's eyes, she staring at her like some mixture of an adoring little sister, and a mother who forgives her for drawing on the wall because the drawing was of her.

Well, it wasn't a drawing of her. It wasn't...

Or well... it's not that SIMPLE!

But try as Paine might to find it, Yuna's smile does not have a disclaimer attached.

'We're her Guardians!' two blondes chorus.

It is surreal to converse this way. Maybe this is how a hairdresser feels. Three quarters of Paine has to think about what she did to Yuna's hair, but the rest is free to talk about whatever she likes.

"...an Al Bhed Guardian?" Paine queries drily. "Family dinner must be interesting."

But if Yuna's smile was audacious, her words are downright impudent. Paine's red eyes shoot back to Yuna's face, her lips parted slightly in disbelief. She has no pithy remark, this time, and no defense. The way she looks at Yuna, it's like she's demanding the Summoner admit she's lying.

It's like she's afraid.

Her eyes flick to Lulu. It is not only the Black Mage's eyes which match Paine better than the others here. Without realizing it, Paine has an instinct to speak THROUGH Lulu almost, as though the oldest member of this party were a sort of translator between two parties that spoke different languages.

"Rikku," Paine repeats, her eyes travelling the blondes. "Tidus." Then, back to Lulu. Her shoulders stiffen, then. Lulu gives her the opportunity to recognize the obvious. It was coming either way.

She was never annoyed because she thought Yuna's smile was wrong.

"Well," Paine tells Lulu defensively. But she's looking at Yuna. It is Yuna she is talking to, by way of Lulu.

"Well," she repeats, neutrally this time, under a prolonged exposure to two-toned eyes.

Slowly, she lets her rifle drop, its now-cool barrel brushing the tall grass. She and her cloak had shared a weariness to their appearance, when Lulu had first seen her. But now Paine's shoulders carry it like the battle flag of a routed army; the pride all gone, but defiance not quite dead.

"Somebody who would finish the Pilgrimage, after everything that's happened, and everything they've learned..." Paine at last glances away from Yuna's eyes, to the ground, and finishes her explanation to Lulu.

"I didn't know there could be a person like that an hour ago, and having just found that out I wasn't ready to give it up."

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
"So!?" Rikku retorts, as her Al Bhed heritage is brought up in conjunction with her Guardianship. It should be an oxymoron she knows, but it just isn't. "What have you got against interesting? For your information Yunie and me are family!"
 
Rikku wishes she had laughter in her heart at Tidus saying it at the same time, but she's just come off such a wild emotional swing that she can't do more than smile at Tidus shooting her that look. However, she then gawks when Yuna steps forward to offer her hand. "Yunie she's-! She's here to-"
 
Yuna says it in a way that brooks no argument, and Rikku finds herself looking at Paine not in a new light quite at first. "Huh? But... you just..." Is her immediate response. Not understanding how Yuna could make a declaration of friendship to someone she seemed to just meet for the first time.
 
And then it hits her. "Oh." It's not too dissimilar to how Yuna accepted her despite Rikku's involvement in her kidnapping.
 
It occurs to her, that perhaps to Yuna, blood was never truly the most important reason as to why Rikku was invited to be here. Even if it is important.
 
And as Lulu confirms it, Rikku finds herself just staring with her mouth open. "So you mean. She-"
 
Rikku points to Paine.
 
"-was trying to save Yunie from-"
 
Rikku's finger makes a slow trip to point back at herself.
 
"-me?"
 
...
 
...
 
...
 
One can see Rikku's brain working for some time. Like it's Machina like gears are simply jamming up at the idea of someone considering her a threat to Yuna.
 
Until... "Okay, yeah." Rikku finally says in blithe acceptance of reality, "That's pretty fair actually?"
 
Rikku says as she takes Lulu's hand and works her way back up to a standing position, having worked the wobble out of her knees. "Um - Hi Paine. I'm Rikku." Beat, as she works through both wild emotional shifts and frazzled nerves, "Oh right Lulu just introduced me... um - anyhow - sorry for the misunderstanding?"
 
Rikku was simply feeling overprotective after her own people took her off-guard on ANOTHER WORLD to nab Yuna but instead of explaining she just says, "Guess... I goofed. It was actually pretty impressive how you snuck up on me... and handled yourself."
 
As if she were trying to compliment her to simply build on the apology. Though she then manages a smile, "I guess... I can't blame you for that. That's... the effect Yunie has on people I think. Or at least... the effect she had on me. She's just turns all of what you took for granted... upside down. I never would have thought that I'd be joining her... until I met her."
 
Perhaps it might embarrass Yuna, given that she's standing right there, but she's unashamed to say it, "And then before I knew it - becoming an Al Bhed Guardian..." She emphasizes, and it feels like equal parts pride, and equal parts good natured tease.
 
The smile she makes though is as genuine as genuine can be in the sincerity of her admiration. "... to my cousin?" Her eyes dart over to Yuna, as she steps up behind her, "I didn't even need to think about it when she offered."
 

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    'Everyone here... is my friend,' Yuna announces, and Tidus has to double-take at that.
    
    "Wait, *what*? But she tried to kill Rikku!" he protests. However, when Lulu breaks it down--explaining to Paine that, yes, Rikku and Tidus are Yuna's Guardians, and pointing out that Paine tried to protect Yuna from what she thought were threats--it dawns on Tidus that... Oh yeah. That *does* make sense, based on what he's seen of her so far.
    
    "Uh... Sorry for the misunderstanding," he says to Paine, lowering his sword as he rubs the back of his head. "Didn't know you were a friend of Yuna's. But I guess you didn't know me and Rikku were Yuna's Guardians, so hey, that makes us even?"
    
    In any case, it looks like he can sheathe his sword. He does so, snorting at Paine's comment about family dinner and Rikku's retort that, actually, she and Yunie ARE family, then hobbles in pain over to Rikku to check on her. "You okay? That was an intense minute or two." Was it even that long? It was over so fast, he can't even be sure. ...it seems like she just needs a minute, though.
    
    Paine comments on Yuna's will to finish her pilgrimage. Tidus frowns a little at this and glances at Yuna, but--well, that's something that's too complicated for pithy comment. He thinks he understands a little how Lulu and the others must've felt, even though this feels pretty different.
    
    But when Paine gets defensive after getting called out, he kind of has to smile at the sight. She really is like if Auron and Lulu had a baby, with a surprisingly gooshy marshmallow center. ...That's ANOTHER thought he keeps to himself. He's not sure he wants to find out how a woman like that to react to accusations like that.
    
    Instead, he scratches his head and says, "Well--nice meeting you, Paine! Wish it hadn't been like this, but at least no one got hurt too bad, right?" A pause, and he clutches his gun injury. "Speaking of, Yuna, I could kinda use a little healing... Oof. She's a toughie..."

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Yuna waits -- waits for the resolution that has already come, to rise like the sun in each of the others. As dawn breaks within them, one at a time, it breaks within her also. And something else blossoms too...

It isn't unheard of for powerful wizards to accidentally drop the temperature of a room when they get annoyed, or to shed sparks, or weep lightning, when sufficiently enraged. Only amateurs would mistake this for a sign of skill, however. True masters would never lose control over the elements like that.

But Yuna isn't a master, or if she is, it is of something that plays by other rules. Whether it's weakness or strength, she's... leaking a bit.

When Yuna's heart overflows, it overflows with healing, and it is this bountiful blessing that quietly passes outward from her in a sparkling cloud. The others have felt the embrace of her white magic more times than can be counted; the ease of pain, the uncompromising thoroughness of her wound-mending, despite its remarkable swiftness -- that is the least of it. It feels like Yuna, Yuna's feelings flower within those it touches, and right now Yuna feels gratitude, even awe, at the outpouring all around her -- all for her. That Rikku's has four times as many words as Paine's is of no consequence. She loves that Tidus focuses more on the immediate needs of himself and others as much as she loves Lulu for making sure everything is absolutely clear.

It means too much to her to be contained.

If she is embarrassed by anything, then, it is this accidental and deeply intimate expression of herself that pinkens her cheek -- not the deliberate and deeply intimate expressions of others. But she does not turn away. Still she holds forth her hand; still she wants to help Paine up.

But -- in deference to Paine's clear preference -- she too looks away, towards Rikku and Tidus instead.

"Thank you... for trying to protect me," she tells them, and through them, Paine also.

Suddenly, the tall grasses part to admit a powerfully built Besaid islander with a spectacularly spikey orange cowlick.

"Yo, who's protecting Yuna from what now?" he demands to know, but with an ease, a casualness, that makes it clear that he offers no threat. For now.

And he is the least powerful, the least spectacular, of his company. The other two also make less of an effort to not be intimidating. The short (for his kind) blue Ronso with the broken horn towers over Yuna as he inserts himself into her personal space, behind and to the left, with swift, silent strides and a steady, gold-eyed expression.

Barring more recent proclamations from Bevelle that have made them all infamous, the party's other major-league celebrity -- the legendary Guardian of High Summoner Braska -- stares at the scene over his dark glasses from a greater distance that has as much to do with personality as it does positioning. But a smirk cracks the crag of his weathered face, more heard than seen, on account of his red coat's high collar.

"What's this?" he asks Yuna. "Another stray?"

"Wakka, Kimahri, Auron," she both greets and introduces gently. "This is Paine. Paine... these are the rest of my Guardians."

She definitely doesn't MEAN it like 'now you know what they look like so you won't attack them on sight' but it would be easy for it to come off that way.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

"That's true," Lulu agrees, "Family dinner is often interesting."

With Rikku rising again, Lulu notes her reply--and yes, perhaps it is fair. Once she's certain Rikku is more all right, she returns to the conversation, and this is when she notes that feeling of warmth. That she has no physical wounds to heal at the moment in n way diminishes that particular feeling, that emotion in the moment that cannot be contained.

With that, Lulu doesn't have to worry if everyone's all right that way at all. So she lets that go. It is definitely best that Tidus continues not to share his mental image, though.

Maybe, though--maybe there is a sort of shared language between Lulu and Paine, as much as their eye color is in common. Lulu notes Paine's looking at her, and is willing enough to listen. So she does, and it is well. ...And well.

She's a barrier that isn't really a barrier, willing to be a relay for a connection that Paine can try to keep at a distance, but isn't likely to stay there. That's just how Yuna is. Lulu knows her well.

Yuna thanks her. Lulu watches her for a few moments longer, as Paine looks to the ground. And then, as the others start to arrive, she looks over to Wakka. "There was a misunderstanding," she clarifies, before returning her gaze for now to Paine.

"That's fair enough," she answers her, considering her reasoning and, apparently, seeming to approve. But there's something in Lulu's gaze that might transmit through that particular kind of shared language more than that; the things she leaves unsaid and unasked, looking at Paine's weapon once again and then back to her face with just a flick of her eyes.

Not that everything in it is particularly easy to read.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Paine gazes levelly at Rikku as she works through what happened aloud. At best she is expecting Rikku to find it funny. More realistically, maybe she will grumble for now and get over it one day. What does not seem realistic is that she will get over it right here in front of Paine's eyes. But there she goes. It's like watching a plant water itself or something.

"Cousin." Paine exhales. That really drives home how badly she misread the situation. She lifts her head to look at Tidus, her teeth bared a bit in discomfort. A friend of Yuna's? "I'm not--" She glances at Yuna, and doesn't finish. "No. There's no need for apology," she tells Tidus instead.

Red eyes give away little as Rikku explains 'Yunie.' "In fact," she tells Tidus. "I'll apologize. I don't know how I mistook her for an assassin, Al Bhed or not. She's like a little orange kitten."

Intentionally, Paine avoids eye contact with Rikku after that content, feigning deafness. Trawling for squeaks, she is. She's about to push herself to her feet (on her own, not ready to take Yuna's hand), when she feels a clenching in her chest begin to loosen.

At first, she takes it for some sort of emotional relief. She has not understood her heart today. But it is something simpler. The bruise to her sternum from Tidus shoving her is disappearing. The hesitation her body had about taking deep breaths is gone like it had been imagined.

So why is it that suddenly she can't breathe at all?

With a start, Paine looks up at Yuna. This is something she was not meant to see, perhaps. But Yuna does not seem to scruple with privacy in this company. That of her cousin, her caretaker, and... whatever Tidus's stake is. And it is a company whose safe harbor she has opened, unasked for, to Paine, if only for the moment.

The girl who walks the false pilgrimage has a heart that leaks healing. More than ever, Paine worries about what redder and darker leak may spring from it one day. But before she can think further on it, there are newcomers to greet. And Paine has never been great at greetings.

"Hey," Paine greets Wakka. His attitude is about the best she could ask for at the moment. And Kimahri, for all his muscle and size, never triggers the sense Paine feels she ought to have of Yuna's delicacy in comparison. They are too natural a sight, together, slipping so readily into one another's company. And last of all, the legendary Guardian.

"That's right," she agrees with Auron. "Just another stray."

Yuna isn't looking for it anymore, but her hand is still out, and suddenly she feels Paine's wrap it. It's so warm and roughly callused that the mind wants to envision some sturdy brown fisherman's hand, but a glance down shows fingers so pallid as to haunt even Yuna's relatively fair skin, sticking out of her cutoff glove. There's a tug, and a steady application of weight; less than expected, perhaps. Paine tends to look bigger than she is, as though she just walks big. Even once she's on her feet, she holds on another few seconds.

"They tell me it gave me a bad personality," she warns Lulu, because Lulu will actually factor that in. There's no use telling Yuna. "I wouldn't rush to call me your friend."

She makes to release Yuna's hand.

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.

 
Lulu has met both her father, and her brother, Brother - even if her main exposure to the latter was behind the armor plating of a mechanical Shoopuf with potty mouthed graffiti on the side of it. Her confirmation is thus, an informed one.
 
"Fine. Fine. How... about you?" She says with a look his way, as if inspecting him for bullet wounds, "I was worried... that... well you know. And then..." Rikku momentarily gets this slightly dazed look, "Anyhow... let's not ever talk about that thing that happened at the end - again. Okay?" Rikku then starts speaking far too quickly, not even allowing him to get a word in before she does, "Thanks Tidus you're the best!"
 
Paine though says she apologizes, and Rikku is all smiles at first, "Hey it's alr-" until she gets to that final part of little orange kitten, and whatever magnanimity in her fades, as she starts right out of her current posture, "What!? Did she just - Hey! Who's a kitten!? For your information - I came from a real rough and tumble crew before this! Just wait and see how scary I can be when I'm actually mad!"
 
Rikku doesn't catch that Paine is avoiding her gaze though, because whatever outrage though she has is something she stumbles RIGHT OVER as Yuna offers her thanks, Rikku gets this mildly embarrassed expression, and looks like she's struggling to respond to that - being thanked, "I mean... we are your Guardians..." She says, never quite getting out why Yuna need not thank her.
 
The apology for not adequately protecting her before, never comes though. Fortunately, others relieve her of the duty of dancing around that. As Wakka comes up with that casualness. "Um... a lot... happened." As does Kimahri, and Auron. Whose greeting is one that gets an instant response, "Rude."
 
Paine accepts that descriptor.
 
"Still rude." Rikku jabs Auron's way, despite Paine's acceptance. As Paine does take Yuna's hand, and warns Lulu of her bad personality. Rikku looks at Paine while sideeyeing Auron, "I dunno... it never stopped any of us from hanging around this guy." She says, with a quality that feels like a cheerful ribbing. It has the feel of some niece messing with a coarse uncle.
 

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    As Tidus requests healing, Yuna exudes healing energy in a sort of moonbow radiating out from her body. Its shimmers pass into and through him, and they take his pain and injuries away, presumably along with Rikku's and Paine's too. Tidus breathes out a sigh of relief, then gives Yuna a rueful smile as she thanks him and Rikku. He could drop some line about it being his job, but... "Anytime." ...there's not really a need for that anymore.
    
    He stands up straight as Wakka returns with the other hunters. "Oh, hey, Wakka! Yeah, uh... what she said," he says after Lulu, scratching his head. "Everything's fine, now."
    
    He looks back at Paine and smiles, then laughs, at her apology. "Yeah, she's kind of way too adorable to be a bloodthirsty killer, right? You can see the family resemblance," he teases, though if this is a tease for Yuna or Rikku or both is up to whoever is willing to accept the tease. Fierce little orange kitten!! "Still, I appreciate your apology. It's nice to meet someone who *does* apologize for attacking us, you know? You wouldn't *believe* some of the stuff we've been through..." He pauses, remembering their recently-earned infamy, and adds, "Or, uh, maybe you would."
    
    Auron calls Paine another stray. Tidus snorts and folds his arms behind his head. "Yup, the latest in a series," he says dryly, nudging Rikku, fellow stray. She's all too happy to scrub that last unpleasantness from the records meanwhile, and Tidus starts to understand a little more how he went so long without ever learning the truth about the summoner's pilgrimage. Her dig at Auron gets a grin out of him, though. "Yeah, you're not the worst we've ever met!"

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

"Hmph," grunts Auron, neutrally, at Lulu and Paine's answers, at Rikku's crack.

"Hahaha," laughs Wakka, awkwardly, at Tidus' reaction to the apology. But it was good-natured. From the belly.

Kimahri says nothing at all.

Attention drawn to it, Yuna and Rikku do indeed share a strong resemblance to one another. One of the summoner's eyes is of course the strongest signifier, but also the most generic. There are others, subtler and more significant at once. Contours of their faces, lines of their form. A certain similarity in nose that is, at most, once removed -- which is exactly correct.

But much more deeply than any of that, they are kindred spirits. Yuna may be quiet where Rikku is loud, and serious where Rikku is boisterous, but on the inside -- in every way that counts -- they are very similar.

After all... they both accepted Paine for who she is, immediately; forgave her actions as driven by good intentions, instantly.

"Yes," she agrees quietly, gratefully. They are her Guardians. And they'll save her any time. She smiles at her, at Tidus, at the others, as they approach and banter.

Paine takes her hand, and then she returns her smile to her, too. Yuna's hand is softer but not without calluses of its own. One can only imagine what the soles of her well-booted feet are like, in the midst of her long journey. False or true, this pilgrimage is taken one step at a time, all the same. And her feet have hardly taken the worst of it.

At the beginning, she might have glanced nervously at Lulu to gauge her support. In the middle, she might have asked Auron for permission. Now she does neither. Not because she doesn't care what they think -- but because she no longer enjoys the luxury of illusion, that her decisions, made outside the auspices of Yevon, are shared. Not truly. She is responsible for herself. For her own choices.

"Um," she begins, shyness slipping onto her features for the first time; she may own herself but it isn't always easy or simple to do so. And also she doesn't want to make Paine too uncomfortable, with hasty assumptions or unwanted advances.

But Paine's actions have already spoken much more loudly than any words could. She doesn't have a bad personality.

She has a Guardian's personality.

"Would you," Yuna swallows, forced to look up at the now-taller woman instead of down, "Maybe, like to come with us?"

She too starts to release their tangled hands. She doesn't want to PRESSURE. And her other hand unconsciously tucks a bit of now-unusually spikey hair behind her heavily beaded ear. "That is to say," she plunges on a bit breathlessly, "If you're... still wanting to... not give up." An awkward but accidentally too-poignantly accurate paraphrase of Paine's explanation for her actions. Not atypical for Yuna, as Paine is rapidly learning.

"You were right... to worry. We do have many enemies," she concludes, not wholly without dignity. Her voice never trembles, for all that it is tentative, careful -- mindful. And her gaze is unwavering. "I'd feel better about you fighting them with us together... instead of all alone."

Like she just did, moments ago. Protect the summoner, even at the cost of one's own life...

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

"That thing that happened at the end?" Lulu asks of Rikku. "You'll have to tell me about it later." Busted. "Hmmm," she says next of orange kittens. Or maybe of how Rikku and Paine are already getting along. You know, whichever.

Everything is more or less fine. But still--She shakes her head slightly, a fond sort of gesture at Tidus's appreciation. It's true; very few do apologize. And it's also true that at this point, someone might believe him. This is her comment, such as it is; she doesn't much need words for that. More strays...

The latest in a series, even. Is she?

Oh, Lulu will factor it in, all right. But she has a different set of variables that Paine can't know just yet. This isn't to say she expects what happens, but one of the benefits of quiet yet is being able to wait for someone else to ask some of the questions. Once, Lulu would have questioned this particular kind of request--once, she did. But that's different, now, and no such challenge or warning or even glance happens. It isn't necessary, now.

Yuna knows her own heart.

"Good personality or bad, she makes up her mind quickly," Lulu reflects, looking to Auron for a moment not for permission herself, but to share a silent word or two through that look. There is something that could be funny in it...

If this situation really could be.

But as if anticipating Paine using her as a translator again, Lulu looks back to her. "It's between you and Yuna," she observes simply.

Her calm acceptance might make it seem like she expected this all along. But it's not that. It's that Yuna knows her own heart... and that Lulu has accepted this, in her own.

There's really nothing else Lulu needs to say.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Paine looks at Tidus with curiosity. He and Rikku are strays too? The story of this Summoner's company must be an interesting one.

Of course she doesn't look at Rikku. She's having enough of a hard time keeping her trademark straight-edge mouth in place as the small girl boasts of her skeezy past. It's not that she doesn't believe it; Al Bhed have to live on the edges of society at the best of times. It's just... so damn cute.

And then the kitten and her friend teasingly get Paine's back against Auron, that badass hero that he is. What did she do to deserve that? Other than kick Rikku's ass a little. Paine feels mystified. It's not how it was with Nooj, Gippal, and Baralai. Rivalry was never quite put aside, with them. Like a conversation with pistols put down... but still on the table.

Yuna's voice is so much smaller than the rowdier discussion taking place around her, but it brings Paine's attention back faster for its softness than any shout could have managed. She regards the summoner, her expression attentive but blank. Despite her best intentions, she has the sort of face that tends to make people wonder if they did something wrong.

Taking back her hand when Yuna returns it, Paine seems to let it hover indecisively for a moment, then rests it on the hilt of her sword, which is still stuck in the ground like a fence post. She blinks twice, rapidly, at Yuna's innocent deathblow of an analysis. But her true focus is on Yuna's demeanor. Her shyness. The eagerness that pushes her past it. All at once she is speaking to some bashful ingenue and a woman who has grown into her authority and wears it weightlessly. It is difficult to know what demeanor to take in return, or if she should open herself to this to begin with.

One blink, at the mention of enemies and threat. One scimitar flash of silver eyelashes, and then the pools of red reappear. It is too easy for Paine to understand the fragility of life, and the frequency with which heroism ends in corpses. For what this not her training? To cast the never-forgetting gaze of her sphere recorder backwards, when her fellow soldiers were to move on and live on? It can be difficult to credit, when faced with such vibrance of belief as Paine sees in Yuna, that she might be one of the ones who won't make it. Every Spiran knows there are such people. You just try not to believe it will be you and yours.

In the end it wasn't Kimahri that reminded Paine how fragile a thing that Yuna's heartbeat is. It is, inadvertently, Yuna herself.

"So that's how it is." Paine's voice is mild, teasingly smug. "You have some pretty strange taste in Guardians. I'm not convinced you wouldn't have asked one of the chocobo to join you if I hadn't come along. Maybe both."

Paine pulls her sword from the dirt and flips it up lightly, to clean it with her cloak. Lulu will be of no help this time, it seems. Or rather, she has already rendered the help she intends. Paine's face flickers in thought a moment, then she curtly drops her sword into its sheath, letting the hilt click down with a single smooth clatter. Her eyes meet Yuna's again, and there is a sort of remonstration in her gaze.

Do you really think it's fair?
Being the way that you are.

"Yeah," Paine says. "Yeah, all right. I'll protect you." Having said it aloud, a little peace seeps into Paine. Her next words bear the smooth, reflective surface of calm.

"I'll get you where you're going."

Cocking a knee and shifting her weight in well-practiced counterbalance, Paine swings her carbine up and, with a jerk of her thumb and a pump of her elbow, snaps it open. Her mouth stays flat, but she smiles with her eyebrows, which sharpen as she looks over to Rikku. "But if things get bad, and we're someplace really scary, a place that gives us all the creeps," Yuna's newest Guardian warns, as she plucks out the hollow metal casings of her expended rounds, smoothly replacing them with fresh ones. "I'm taking whatever watch that one takes."

With a swing, Paine snaps her machina weapon shut again, and slings it over her back. "Because that," she says matter-of-factly, "is going to be cute as hell."

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    
    Yuna *does* know her own heart, but she hasn't always been the best at expressing her desires. Maybe it's different when it comes to choosing her Guardians--she definitely didn't hide her wish to add Tidus or Rikku to the team--but even so, Tidus is glad to see her so willing to just come out and say what she wants. Between that and Paine's earlier apology, and Rikku forgiving her just as quickly (because at the end of the day, it was Rikku that Paine attacked first), Tidus is actually pretty okay with adding her to the team.
    
    In fact, when Paine smirks and teases Yuna about the chocobos, he cuts in, "Hey, that's not off the table just yet! I've been working on training 'em! Sure would be easier to travel on chocoboback, right, Wakka?" And when she insists on taking the same watch as Rikku when things next get really scary: "Sounds like you've got a new fan," he teases Rikku, elbowing her.
    
    Wasn't he *just* protesting that Paine tried to kill Rikku? And yet here they all are. Paine's going to have a lot to adjust to--but at least it won't be for a lack of welcome.